


Here Comes the Summer Sun (He Burns My Skin)

by Cocopops1995



Series: As Long as Stars are Above You [6]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: :), Burns, Dehydration, F/M, and Ryou makes an appearance, heat exhaustion, shiro's metal arm + the sun is not a good combination, shiroshipweek2019
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-21
Updated: 2019-07-21
Packaged: 2020-07-10 01:29:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,565
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19897636
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cocopops1995/pseuds/Cocopops1995
Summary: Lisa and Shiro are stranded in a desert and the metal of Shiro's arm is growing hotter by the second.





	Here Comes the Summer Sun (He Burns My Skin)

“We’re almost there, sweetheart,” Lisa says, eyes glued on the cave opening just ahead of them. “Just a few steps more.”

Shiro lets out a small, pained whine in response. Lisa tears her eyes away from the cave to look at his face. His head hangs against his chest, his eyes are clenched shut and tears of pain leak out of his them, mingling with the sweat on his face. Lisa’s heart clenches, she doesn’t know if the tears are from remembered pain or from the very real pain his Galra arm is causing him at that very moment. 

She tightens her grip around his waist and readjusts his arm over her shoulders. He leans heavily on her, and she can feel her legs shaking from the exertion while her head pounds in time with her heartbeat, but she pushes all of that out of her mind. She has to get them out from the heat of this planet’s blazing hot sun.

“Just a few more steps.” she repeats, both for Shiro and for herself.

Her eyes lock back onto the cave opening, so tantalisingly close, and has to blink away the sweat that drips into them. She desperately hopes that the cave will be big enough for the both of them to fit in and that it’s not already inhabited. 

Those last few steps feel more like a hundred but finally, they reach the cave. The opening is just big enough for them both to fit through and Lisa can’t help the relieved sigh that escapes her lips when they step into its blessedly cool shade. 

It takes her eyes a few moments to adjust to the sudden gloom of the cave, but when they do she sees that it seems to be a fairly deep cave, stretching back far enough that she can only just make out where it ends.

She stares into that dark part of the cave for a few moments more, eyes straining against the ever-deepening gloom for any signs of life - any signs of danger.

“Leese -” Shiro groans, pulling her attention away from the darkness as he suddenly sags even more heavily against her.

She scrambles to get a better grip on him, but his full weight is simply too much for her to take in her current state, so all she can do is help to slow his fall. 

“Shh, I’ve got you. It’s okay,” she murmurs, guiding his head until he’s lying flat out on the ground, which is cool and untouched by the sun. “You with me again?”

“Y-yeah.” Shiro answers, his voice as hoarse as her own from lack of water. “Where -?”

“The cave we saw a while ago, remember? We just came inside.”

Shiro nods his understanding and Lisa starts pushing the sweat-damp hair out of his face. He looks like he wants to say something but then his eyes slam shut and he clenches his jaw, his neck muscles straining as he rides out another wave of pain. His left hand reaches for his right arm but Lisa catches it, wrapping it in her own hands and squeezing reassuringly.

It only lasts a few seconds but to Lisa, it feels like an eternity passes before his face relaxes enough for him to unclench his jaw again. His eyes open and event though the unshed tears in them stab Lisa’s heart, she’s relieved to see that they’re still clear. The pain hasn’t sent him into another flashback. 

His breaths come out in harsh pants and Lisa bends down to drop a kiss on his forehead even as his sweat stings her cracked lips.

“I’m going to look at it again, okay?” she asks once his breathing has slowed again.

Shiro gives a tired nod.

“Careful.” he whispers as her hands hover over the cloth - the left sleeve of Shiro’s shirt - that she’d tied over the flesh of his right arm.

Her own fingers still burn slightly from the last time she’d tried to touch the Galra arm and she nods. “I will.” 

Then she starts undoing the hasty knot she’d made. Shiro flinches as the cloth shifts against his skin and a curse slips out of his lips. 

Lisa murmurs apologies as she keeps working at the knot, until she can finally pull the cloth away. What she sees in the dim light of the cave makes her stomach drop and her breath catch. 

The skin that meets the metal of his Galra arm is bright red and covered in blisters, burned by the metal that had grown steadily hotter as it was exposed to the blazing sun for hours as they had wandered through this desert in their casual clothes for the past few hours.

Lisa presses a hand to her mouth and internally hurls every curse she knows at the rebels that had abducted them earlier that day, and at the Galra for attaching a metal arm on a man that obviously has no means of regulating its temperature. She’s sure that the burns on Shiro’s arm are at least second degree, if not at the beginning stages of third at the exact point where flesh meets metal. 

“How bad?” Shiro rasps.

“Bad.” Lisa responds, wishing there was something -  _ anything  _ \- she could use to treat those burns. 

The metal should start cooling now that they were out of the sun, but there was nothing she could do to at least alleviate some of the pain Shiro was in, and she hated it. 

She reaches out to lay a comforting hand on Shiro’s cheek. “I’m so sorry, Ro. I wish there was more I could do.”

Shiro turns his head into her hand and smiles weakly up at her. “You’re here. That’s all I need.”

“God, I wish that was true.” Lisa murmurs swaying as she’s hit by a particularly bad wave of dizziness.

“Lie down Leese, please.” Shiro says, “You need to -”

His voice trails off, his eyes losing focus and for a moment Lisa’s sure he’s been pulled into another flashback. But his face doesn’t twist in pain and fear like it normally does when that happens. Rather his features soften into a look of relief even as he blinks and turns his eyes back toward her. 

“It’s okay.” he rasps, smiling reassuringly at her. “Black’s coming.”

Lisa sags in relief and feels her eyes fill with tears even as she hears the Black Lion’s roar echoing in the distance. With shaking hands, she ties the cloth back around Shiro’s burns.

The ground beneath them shakes as the Black Lion lands just outside their cave and their little cave is suddenly filled with the relieved cries of their friends. Someone helps her stand up as the others do the same with Shiro. She wants to warn them to be careful of his arm but the dizziness suddenly becomes too much and then all she knows is blackness. 

***

When Lisa wakes, she’s cold and her knees are weak. She feels herself fall forward but strong arms catch her before she can hit the floor. 

She pries her eyes open and finds herself blinking up at Ryou’s concerned face. 

“Hey.” he says, helping her to sit down. “How’re you feeling.”

Lisa shakes her head, clearing it of the cold fog left from the healing pod and answers his question with a question of her own: “Where’s Ro?”

“Still in the pod.” Ryou answers, throwing a blanket over her shoulders. “I’m taking that damned arm off as soon as he gets out.”

Lisa twists around until she can see Shiro sleeping on in the pod beside the one she’d just come out of. “How bad was he?” she asks. 

“Bordering on third-degree burns.” Ryou answers, handing her a water pouch. “He’s damn lucky the Black Lion found you when it did, or he would have ended up losing more of his arm.”

Lisa lets out a shuddering breath. “God, every time I close my eyes all I see is the way his arm looked when -”

“Hey, it’s okay.” Ryou says, throwing an arm over her shoulders. “He’s going to be okay. You took great care of him out there, and the pod has already healed most of the burns. Soon he’ll wake up, and I’ll take the arm off, and then this will all be behind us.”

Lisa nods, reaching up to wipe away a few fallen tears. 

“Now drink some of that water. Taka will kill me if I let you get dehydrated all over again. And I’ve got you this too.” Ryou says, seemingly pulling a bowl of food goo out of nowhere.

Lisa smiles as she takes a few sips of the water and accepts the bowl. “Thanks, Ry.” 

She listens as Ryou tells her about everything that had happened while she and Shiro were missing, and is pleased when she hears that the rebels had been found and would be dealt with by the planet's authorities. 

It’s only when Shiro finally steps out of his healing pod too and Lisa sees for herself that his arm is fully healed that Lisa truly relaxes. He pulls her against his chest, wrapping his arms tightly around her and she feels the last of the tension draining out of her as she breathes in his scent. 

“Love you, Leese.” he murmurs into her ear.

She smiles up at him. “Love you too, Ro.”  
  



End file.
